When GNOME did its version 3 and Ubuntu came up with Unity, the popularity of Linux Mint sky-rocketed, because they stuck with GNOME 2.32. The Mint team has been working on their next version for a while now, and today, they first unveiled what they're working on. There's good news - the team is working on making GNOME 3 likeable. Their question for this release: "How do we make people like Gnome 3? And what do we provide as an alternative to those who still do not want to change?"

1% of user market share is what they say. But I doubt it. I know of many small companies who decided not to give Microsoft any money. Are they counted? All my family converted to Linux, are they counted? I guess not. There is no way to measure this with precision.